i was wondering about this too. if Olivier was attacking him, he might have no troops left for this cruising hobby.

You may be right.. I could probably do the operation with less troops if I needed too. I maybe don't even need anymore but I will keep shipping them until we take back the peninsula. I would guess i could have done it with just 6-7 divisions total.

But maybe my opponent didn't turn up the pressure enough. Things might be different if my units were in pockets.

quote:

But even closer targets as Kerch require 3 rounds to execute and free the cargo up for new ops.

Around Kerch I can turn my landings around every 2 turns, by loading the transports and leaving them outside of port at end turn, next turn move to land, then turn after that move them back to port load, and move out port on the same turn. Or alternatively load them with units that have ap, form outside port, I only need to load form port units that are out of ap, usually ones that I have railed to port the same turn. I still think I could take kerch no matter what the germans do. I stil think landing forces should loose some readiness, thats just my opinion. It seems strange that moving a unit by trains takes off 25 readiness, but landing them on a beach form a boat doesn't loose any.

I agree the transports HP are too high, they are hard to kill with naval units so much that its easier for my fleet to kill german warships than transports.

With your introduction of the new Russian Tactic of Seaborne Invasion.., everyone will use it and fear it.

Therefore starting now, if the Germans already had an impossible task in Case Blue, KRUPP 88 has now made the German task more impossible.

Someone needs to give Krupp 88 a medal for this one.

I really don;t think i need a medal, i feel kinda bad actually, i think this should at least make a houserule of some sort regarding seaborne invasions, necessary, I honestly don't know what poor germans can do about this. Either that or maybe vic could make a rule regarding sea landings, like when a unit lands it looses readiness / organization.. instead of landing at 100% organization. My units leap off the ships and are running. Seems maybe overpowered. Might be better if landing disrupted their readiness significantly, that way they would need resupply before they could move so far and fast ect. Or another possibility, remove the ability of landing forces to affect zoc in surrounding hex's. taht way it would be impossible to break rails on the first landing turn.

Also It may be nice if airattacks on ships was a bit ore deadly, because as it stands there is nothing he can do to stop my navy without perhaps the entire german airforce.

quote:

CA army could probably do with a high priority replacement setting?

I had them on priority for I think the first two turns.. i can't tell but i don;t think they are getting replacements, the supply in sevestapol is pretty bad. I would like to land an army there to attack, but doing that would roughly double my transit time for my transports so I may capture kerch or another port on the east instead.

Well the easiest way for germany to counter it..which is what i'm doing for my german game is keep cities and ports garrisoned. If the soviets can't take the port to allow supply to reach the invasion force you're out of supply in a couple turns.

from what I read the Russians in the operation of 26 December once transported no more than 6-7 thousand soldiers I can now turn on the game but seeing the size of the operation "Krupp" I assume that the ships transported a lot more troops than 7 k Note also that the distance between Krech and areas occupied by the Russians is not great. What other operation on the isthmus there is a lot more distance

After that, the problem is the effectiveness of German air force in the fight against the Soviet Navy

Generally, it seems to me that the Russians too easily can pass a lot of forces by sea. But I'll test and may change my mind

The german player wasn't using his air force very well. Those ships would be sitting ducks if germany reacted right away.

It's also a big risk for russia. You really need all your forces to hold back germany. I would call this a big gamble.

The German air can do nothing about the Soviet Navy if you have a combat vessels with the Transports. And you first need to spot the navy which require enormous amounts of recon. That is part of the problem is that the Germans cannot defend this tactic due to the mighty Soviet fleet.

You state that the German defense is to defend all ports.., well, that requires lots of units. So starting now after Krupp's Salty Dog, all Germans will man their ports, of course that is less units on the front lines where the Germans are already hopelessly overmatched.

I also see this operation as zero gamble because the Russians have tons of units to spare. Only Olivier has been successful as the Germans because he has a freakish grasp of the entire combat engine. I think you will find out real soon in your AAR that you are in deep poop being the Germans. Every penetration you make better have TONS of supporting because the Russian armor is within striking distance at all times.

The German air can do nothing about the Soviet Navy if you have a combat vessels with the Transports. And you first need to spot the navy which require enormous amounts of recon. That is part of the problem is that the Germans cannot defend this tactic due to the mighty Soviet fleet.

You state that the German defense is to defend all ports.., well, that requires lots of units. So starting now after Krupp's Salty Dog, all Germans will man their ports, of course that is less units on the front lines where the Germans are already hopelessly overmatched.

I also see this operation as zero gamble because the Russians have tons of units to spare. Only Olivier has been successful as the Germans because he has a freakish grasp of the entire combat engine. I think you will find out real soon in your AAR that you are in deep poop being the Germans. Every penetration you make better have TONS of supporting because the Russian armor is within striking distance at all times.

Like vic pointed out though those 2 cities on the neck of the crimea aren't ports. Without holding ports krupps going to find his units out of supply pretty quickly. You really only need a few minor units to protect against it from the start.

But yea i agree airpower is a not as strong against a 1942 navy as it should be. :)

ORIGINAL: balto I also see this operation as zero gamble because the Russians have tons of units to spare. Only Olivier has been successful as the Germans because he has a freakish grasp of the entire combat engine. I think you will find out real soon in your AAR that you are in deep poop being the Germans. Every penetration you make better have TONS of supporting because the Russian armor is within striking distance at all times.

Yea I'm a big fan of vic's AT engine. In the years i've been playing you learn a lot about how you can master it. So simple to learn but difficult to master. Like when i first started and i'd be playing a ladder match in a map with 15 units and i'd get creamed by the veterans who knew the tricks.

The German air can do nothing about the Soviet Navy if you have a combat vessels with the Transports. And you first need to spot the navy which require enormous amounts of recon. That is part of the problem is that the Germans cannot defend this tactic due to the mighty Soviet fleet.

You state that the German defense is to defend all ports.., well, that requires lots of units. So starting now after Krupp's Salty Dog, all Germans will man their ports, of course that is less units on the front lines where the Germans are already hopelessly overmatched.

I also see this operation as zero gamble because the Russians have tons of units to spare. Only Olivier has been successful as the Germans because he has a freakish grasp of the entire combat engine. I think you will find out real soon in your AAR that you are in deep poop being the Germans. Every penetration you make better have TONS of supporting because the Russian armor is within striking distance at all times.

I sure wish air recon extended farther over the sea hex's.

The air can defiantly hurt the soviet navy if you use the correct planes, and knock their readiness down, it might take several attacks to do this, but after the readiness is lower the aa fire will not hurt your planes much, the level bombers are good for opening attack to weaken their readiness and stukas are then safer to go in for the kills.

I do think transports have way too much hit points though, those guys are hard to sink, they are better for defense than combat vessels..

quote:

Like vic pointed out though those 2 cities on the neck of the crimea aren't ports. Without holding ports krupps going to find his units out of supply pretty quickly. You really only need a few minor units to protect against it from the start.

Some of the units on the east side still get a little supply, not much but some, on the west I knew supply would be a major issue and I could not last long, I also knew after seeing no units there he could not attack me, so i landed the minimum units to cut the rail the first turn, and landed the rest later, so that they wouldn't be out of supply as long. On the east side I just dumped everyone because i needed those transports back to port for the next landing asap. The men defending the straight only need to hold those straights for three to four turns, and the first one or two they are not even in reach of the attackers being railed in. Once attacked they will loose readiness but should have enough to hold for a small amount of time.

Now my supply lines from the south are opening up, and maybe next turn they will be receiving supply again. If my opponent decided to bomb my port.. not sure if this would spoil my plans, because its already at 100% damage and only 200 going on 400 repaired... But i did manage to wreck an entire wing of bombers. Not sure how many more he has down there. Also not sure but any planes down there ill bet are out of supply as well and cant fly. But regardless the next wave is ready to go ashore i might capture another port anyway, i made a mistake of not bringing an aa gun to the port when i captured it.. just dont have enough aa units as soviets, there is never enough aa, but germans have aa in every unit lol. Combined with my airforce really makes life tough; but I do have the entire soviet airforce flying cap over the harbor. So hopefully that helps. I do think if he had his units right it could be stopped, but its something you would have to expect, probably something a new player wouldnt understand the mechanics of easily, unless you are like me and crazy about these detailed mechanics lol. But it would need units on the neck of the peninsula in disproportionate amounts as compared to elsewhere, i think the west side is the best because it takes my transports alot longer to get there meaning it could be protected from repeat raids.

Turn 6

OK so we connected our supply lines up, need that bridge though i just ran out of ap to get it. next turn supply should be flowing to our forces, stavka assigned me to hold the town on the west side out of nowhere just as i was getting ready to leave too.. Guess those guys are going to either hold it or die.

In the central front, a dangerous panzer spearhead breaks though and we panic and draw back out lines, we launch counter attack on the spearhead but i think my opponent is wising up he is playing defense cards on them now and i got two bloody noses, reserve army had to be committed there; now I may not have enough troops to conduct a fifth naval landing; but i still think i can destroy those German corps at sevestapol no problem. My troops linking up the supply to the north overrun and destroy an entire Romanian division after a battleship barrage, his units in the Crimea are glass cannons now. My only worry is dismissal, rostov and all other objectives will be held to the DEATH, this may endanger some of my units, or even cause the front to break but its necessary.

And here is the most worrying of all. Our casualties. Despite nearly stopping the panzers to a crawl we are paying a heavy price. Our numbers are dropping fast, and the reinforcements are not stemming the bloodloss. meanwhile he is remaining the same. the only area I am even able to make a dent is his tank and halftrack numbers, where I think we are close to getting 800 axis tanks destroyed, and more than 600 halftracks but even so they only lost about 300 tanks from their original numbers and 500 half-tracks putting them at 2700 out of 3200. Everything else is about the same at the start. i would probably be in real trouble except, I know there must be something close to a a hundred thousand men trapped in the Crimea. Once I mop these guys up, I hope to see the casualties skyrocket.

Yea not trying to say it was a mistake for you to land because you saw he wasn't defending those bottlenecks. It was worth the risk. Blind had a coule turn window where he could have fixed that but yea it's looking like your coup de main worked flawlessly. Fortune favors the bold!

Wonder why he didn't immediately play the Naval Ambition card to try to help remove the blockade of his port before you took it. Has he communicated with you at all what he was thinking?

Yea not trying to say it was a mistake for you to land because you saw he wasn't defending those bottlenecks. It was worth the risk. Blind had a coule turn window where he could have fixed that but yea it's looking like your coup de main worked flawlessly. Fortune favors the bold!

I think he may have had the window shut before he had a chance to react. he did curiously spot, I think possibly my naval invasion force in the sea of azov?

But I had intentionally planned for this eventuality and specifically moved them so that it appeared i was going to invade Mariakop to the northeast, masking my intention. Possibly he could have supplied by air this is my biggest wonder.. did he try air supply? I have never tried air supply and wonder if it works. Also i would have immediately switch out the trapped commanders for any that had supply cards. And transferred the entirety of the airforce down south and attacked, maybe even tried a naval landing behind the west side of the peninsula.

quote:

Wonder why he didn't immediately play the Naval Ambition card to try to help remove the blockade of his port before you took it. Has he communicated with you at all what he was thinking?

Not really. Are you referring to the 100pp card? He engaged my naval picket as soon as the landing went down and sunk 10 torpedo boats. But my forces were waiting to counter attack, he had used ..concentric naval attacks? I think he was trying to force a surrender of my units.. but that left his fleet scattered and piecemeal easy targets. And three soviet cruisers subs and torp boats rolled up his fleet and forced it back to port where we are now blockading it, while bypassing his transports which are tough to sink. I think it was a big mistake to engage me in open ocean without even softening me up with air first and splitting his navy apart.. Maybe he didnt know the hopeless German naval situation compared to soviet fleet. The card would I think only give him like 3-5 naval units, half of which are probably transports, probably not enough to kill me in direct combat with air.

I think right now hes just trying to crush my army, which he may very well succeed in, I really don't know where I am going to make up the replacements at this rate unless it increases soon.

ORIGINAL: balto You state that the German defense is to defend all ports.., well, that requires lots of units. So starting now after Krupp's Salty Dog, all Germans will man their ports, of course that is less units on the front lines where the Germans are already hopelessly overmatched.

I'm having trouble telling which hexes are ports. Is there a variable you can view while playing the game to see if a hex is a port or not?

Isn't there a (rather large) anchor symbol by the ports, right on the map? There are relatively few of them in the game (which makes it tougher for the Sovs to think about amphibious invasion, because of supply concerns). I think Yalta is one example.

ORIGINAL: Grotius Isn't there a (rather large) anchor symbol by the ports, right on the map? There are relatively few of them in the game (which makes it tougher for the Sovs to think about amphibious invasion, because of supply concerns). I think Yalta is one example.

That's what I thought but Kerch doesn't have an anchor symbol.....it's not a port?

ORIGINAL: Grotius Isn't there a (rather large) anchor symbol by the ports, right on the map? There are relatively few of them in the game (which makes it tougher for the Sovs to think about amphibious invasion, because of supply concerns). I think Yalta is one example.

That's what I thought but Kerch doesn't have an anchor symbol.....it's not a port?

What I seem to be learning form experience here is that cities with blue dots OR port symbols are ports.. or at least that is what it seems.

In the north our losses are getting out of control. Despite still no pockets he is starting to shred our front.. Sir robbin is ordered across the front.. If we can just run a few turns I might get enough reinforcements.. If I had waited even a turn longer.. We would have been pocketed, I pushed the situation as far as possible dancing on a razors edge of disaster. I played a card for more infantry and we got 12000 something men.. that helps alot. On the plus side the germans loose another 100+ tanks form their oob now around ~1100. They really are intent on smashing their panzers into my forces no matter what.

Meanwhile outside Sevestapol, the noose tightens this turn. Now I am absolutely sure the trapped germans are not getting a single bullet. Unless maybe by air.

We landed at Yalta after heavy battleship barrage and air attack, destroying another two romanian divisions AND the Romanian army headquarters! That should put them out of the war I think. I wonder what their spirit level is? Hopefully 0.

Supply is now flowing slowly to the north.. it will be too little too late however to stop the Germans form breaking back into the peninsula.. This means we have to work fast to eliminate the germans. I estimate we have 3-4 turns to do this without reinforcements. If we can land just one more landing.. then we might get enough men in the hills to prevent any supply flow. and that might buy us some more time.

We launch an attack form sevestapol and cause heavy losses to the germans but they held their ground.. they should break next turn. I need to round them up quickly, not a second to waste. The bear is hungry.

Although i do have a very evil plan in preparation.. very very very very evil. Will it work? Maybe.

Yea not trying to say it was a mistake for you to land because you saw he wasn't defending those bottlenecks. It was worth the risk. Blind had a coule turn window where he could have fixed that but yea it's looking like your coup de main worked flawlessly. Fortune favors the bold!

I think he may have had the window shut before he had a chance to react. he did curiously spot, I think possibly my naval invasion force in the sea of azov?

But I had intentionally planned for this eventuality and specifically moved them so that it appeared i was going to invade Mariakop to the northeast, masking my intention. Possibly he could have supplied by air this is my biggest wonder.. did he try air supply? I have never tried air supply and wonder if it works. Also i would have immediately switch out the trapped commanders for any that had supply cards. And transferred the entirety of the airforce down south and attacked, maybe even tried a naval landing behind the west side of the peninsula.

quote:

Wonder why he didn't immediately play the Naval Ambition card to try to help remove the blockade of his port before you took it. Has he communicated with you at all what he was thinking?

Not really. Are you referring to the 100pp card? He engaged my naval picket as soon as the landing went down and sunk 10 torpedo boats. But my forces were waiting to counter attack, he had used ..concentric naval attacks? I think he was trying to force a surrender of my units.. but that left his fleet scattered and piecemeal easy targets. And three soviet cruisers subs and torp boats rolled up his fleet and forced it back to port where we are now blockading it, while bypassing his transports which are tough to sink. I think it was a big mistake to engage me in open ocean without even softening me up with air first and splitting his navy apart.. Maybe he didnt know the hopeless German naval situation compared to soviet fleet. The card would I think only give him like 3-5 naval units, half of which are probably transports, probably not enough to kill me in direct combat with air.

I think right now hes just trying to crush my army, which he may very well succeed in, I really don't know where I am going to make up the replacements at this rate unless it increases soon.

air supply is underwealming the 200 JU52 you get at start can fly in 30 supply. :)

So what is your next evil evil plan? :) If you can manage to destroy all the germans in the crimea than you will cause him some problems. But while you diverted so much to the crimea your troops in the north and center are cursing you.

air supply is underwealming the 200 JU52 you get at start can fly in 30 supply. :)

quote:

air supply is underwealming the 200 JU52 you get at start can fly in 30 supply. :)

wow! really, that is way to low. Even stalingrad they delivered more than that.

My calculations how that. According to comparisons to stalingrad. A division (8-10 thousand men) would need around 60,000 pounds of supply in static conditions (not moving much), Maybe double that on an offensive, so we will just call this 50% (120,000 pounds for max supply) (thats 12 pounds per man per day) (at Stalingrad they ask for 1/2 this amount). Some things can't really come by air. But could probably make do with near 30,000 in an emergency.

I also show that a ju-52 could deliver in most cases 750KG ~1750 pounds of supply in a sortie. The average being 400 pounds or ~160kg per day (one sortie every 4 days) due to fighter interdiction poor weather crashes airfield problems and maintenance and pilot fatigue ect.

So accounting for all the hazardous conditions and weather of a stalingrad type air supply operation. 200 ju-52's should be able to manage at least 80,000 pounds per day (averaged). Or 160,000 per turn.

In this game a german division needs about 200 per turn or 100 per day supply so 30 / 200 when 200 = 120,000 pounds per turn. 120,000 per turn is congruent to 18,000 / 120,000. So 200 Ju-52's only supply 18,000 pounds per turn or 9,000 pounds of supply per day. Is that crazy? That assumes every plane accounts for 45 pounds of supply per day... or more probably 90 pounds every turn (per sortie in good weather).

These are very reserved calculations going on Stalingrad conditions. And assume bad and poor weather as well. In reality if an army was trapped in the Crimea during good summer weather, with many airfields to choose from the actual tonnage could probably be double - triple that.

My calculations show

200 Ju-52's can't even supply a regiment?? Common they should be at least able to supply a division with an airfield. Probably two in good weather. And this is at the very least. They should be delivering like around 300 not 30. Its ten times too low!

So what is your next evil evil plan? :) If you can manage to destroy all the germans in the crimea than you will cause him some problems. But while you diverted so much to the crimea your troops in the north and center are cursing you.

Distance doesnt appear to matter but here is something weird. When i made a new Transport corp it has 25 planes (5 real sftype) and can carry more supply.

But the main unit can only send 15 now. I wonder if its because of the unit being larger than 100 for airbase stacking. I'll have to experiment and see.

I wonder how you are doing your testing. Is it maybe that they will only drop the supplied amount to the units? Are you dropping to units out of supply with low readiness?

TURN 9(skipped a turn)

We broke through near sevestapol and caused hug losses to the armies there, meanwhile he blasted though my defense at the isthmus'. Causing rather high losses on both sides, I was able to extract the remnants of the army before it was destroyed by sea though. Another daring naval raid cuts supply though to the units breaking through with a partisan units that luckily spawned in just the right area. So his drive should be stalled a turn Or more. I plan to keep them out of supply for more than this turn, we even ahve plans to trap and destroy those units as well, once the southern pocket is mopped up we have a large numerical superiority here he better be careful or ill make it a double bagger.

Rostov holds strong and even a limited counter offensive is launched, it looks like he decided to push through around the north side though the hills. We launch a couple raids on his airfileds, i think he has moved alot of air reinforcements south, he tried to bomb my ships but that ended in a ju-87 slaughter and subsequent shore bombardment of their airbase. His air losses are getting pretty high, I think I will have total control of the seas for the rest of the game, and I plan to use it, we have at least one transport read to strike somewhere every turn.

In the north things look very bad.. Full retreat we are blowing bridges and making stands at the rivers.. Running over open ground. Our losses are lighter now, but still too high, my numbers continue to drop, and I cannot sustain any more combat at all. My armys are like glass now. We need to rest for a week or two before we can make another stand somewhere.. thankfully we have no orders to hold any objectives here, and we also got back up to 10prestige again by holding 2 minor minor objectives after loosing two. Rostov will be held easily and that will net us 16 vp. Very welcome. I don;t think I will dare cash in those Victory points unless I'm sure I can hold another major objective.

When will my army units start going up i winder. On the brighter side we now have over 1000 axis tanks burning. And he has probably under 1000 left. At least this will make running away a little bit easier, I don't fear his infantry at all, we can run from those, just his mobile units i can;t escape, and have to accept their lashings.